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LETTER 



FROM THE 



HON. WILLIAM C. RIVES 



VIRGINIA 






CavsTLE Hill, Feb. 15, 1840. 
My Dear Sir, 

You inquire of me what are my views on 
the subject of the pending Presidential elec- 
''tion, and what course I think ought to be pur- 
sued in it by those of us in general of the Re- 
publican parly who have been opposed to the 
ieading measwrcs of the present administra- 
don. 

While my name v/as recently before the 
Legislature, by the act of my friends, as a 
I. candidate for re-election to the Senate of the 
United States, 1 declined, in answer to vari- 
ous communications from members of that 
body, to give any pledge of support to either 
of the Presidential candidates, as the condi- 
tion of my election. I did so, because, while 
it is clear that, under the Constitution, a Se- 
nator of the United States can, in no possible 
contingency, be called on, as such, to give 
any vote or perform other act in the election 
of President, I believed that the practice of 
requiring of those Avho might be brought for- 
ward for the office of Senator, pledges to sup- 
jiort this or that man for the Presidency, how- 
ever it may be otherv/ise viewed by many 
honorable and patriotic men, is a practice fa- 
. tally calculated to destroy the independence 
I of the Legislative Department, and to pros- 
trate it at the feet of the Executive power, 
whose inordinate growth and overshadowing 
influence already threaten the very existence 
of our free institutions. In regard to all those 
questions of public policy and legislation 
which were likely to come before the Senate 



of the United States for its appropriate antl 
legitimate action, my opinions were fully 
known, or if they were not so, I was ever 
ready to declare and explain them to the best 
of my ability, in answer to any inquiries 
which might be addressed to me. 1 had, 
moreover, been very recently in the public 
service, and my acts in the discharge of the 
trust confided to me, which were neither few 
nor equivocal, nor unattended with circum- 
stances of peculiar trial, were before the coun- 
try, affording, as it seemed to me, the most 
authentic interpretation of my principles, as 
well as the surest guarantee of my futuro 
course. 

For these various reasons, I felt that I 
ought not to give any pledge of support to any 
of the Presidential candidates, as the condi- 
tion of my election to the Senate of the United 
States, and accordingly declined to do so 
while my name was recently before the Le- 
gislature, in connection with the election for 
that office. These motives of reserve have 
now ceased. My name is no longer before 
the Legislature for that or any other office ; 
and as, in time past, it has never been by any 
act or solicitation of mine, so, whether it shall 
at any time hereafter be, will depend on the 
free will of others, not mine. And, in the 
event, even, of my name being again present- 
ed to the Legislature, by the partiality and ge- 
nerous confidence with which my friends and 
fellow-citizens have been heretofore pleased 
to distinguish me, the Presidential electioa 
will have been determined, and we shall all, 



of necessity, have taken our equal and respon- 
sible parts in it, beiore the Legislafure, ac- 
cordiiijr 'o their recent decision on the sub- 
joct, will proceed to the election of Senator 
of the United iSlates. Under these circum- 
stances, 1 can no longer feci the shghtest de- 
licacy, as a private^ citizen, in expressing to 
you, freely and without reserve, my opinions 
on the interesting question you propound to 
me. 

Your inquiry naturally divides itself into 
two branches. The first is, can we support 
the re-election ol the present Chief Magis- 
trate — those of us, I mean, who have been 
in earnest in our opposition to the leading 
measures and prevading policy of his admi- 
nistration ? And this-^qiiestion. would seem 
j)roperly and plainly to resolve itself into an- 
other. Has he abandoned or withdrawn any 
of those measures, to which we have been, 
and are still thus opposed 1 iso far from it, 
we have seen that, in his recent Message to 
Congress, he has again brought forward 
and urged, with increased determination of 
purpose, his now cherished Sub-treasury 
scheme, which, at the time of his election, all 
his political friends believed to be fraught, 
and which we still believed to be iVaught, 
with the direst evils to the country. He has 
not oidy again earnestly recommended this 
scheme, but he has urged its adoption in the 
most obnoxious and ohjeciionabifc! of all the 
forms it has ever assumed. I refer, of course, 
to what has been commonly called the specie 
clduse, or requisition of the public dues in gold 
and silver alone. This rigorous feature of 
the scheme had been pretermitted by the Pre- 
sident, in his more recent expositions of it, 
and was believed to be finally abandoned by 
him ; but is now brought forward in bold re- 
lief, it is understood as the sine ijua non of the 
new political alliance, which has been an- 
nounced to the country. And the President 
eten IcUs us that he " believes no period will 
be more auspicious" for the introduction of 
this hard money policy in the operations of 
the government, •' than the present" — when 
we know, tliat in two-thirds or three-fourths 
ol the Slates specie is at an average premium 
often per cent, above the common currency! 
West "auspicious," indeed, for the interests 
of those who are the recipients and beneficia- 
ries of the public contributions, but surely not 
for the interests of the people, who are the 
payers, immediate or uliimate, of all these 
conlribuiions. 

In compliance with this recommendaticn 



of the President, we have just seen the Sub-- 
treasury bill, with the obnoxious specie clause, 
hurried through one branch of the National 
Legislature, by a minorilij vote, in the absence 
of many members, when, if that body (the 
Senate,) had been full, and its members iiad 
voted in conformity to the opinions and wish- 
es, either expressed or understood, of their 
respective States, the measure would have 
been defeated. And yet, in the face of such 
facts as these, appeals are still made in the 
name of a blind and abject party-allegiance, 
to many who are truly opposed to this scheme 
from a thorough conviction of its most danger- 
ous and fatal tendencies, to support the re- 
election of the President, by whose influence^ 
and anti-republican contutnacy it is to be im- 
posed and permanently fastened upon the 
country. A poor attempt is now made to ., 
give plausibility and effect to this appeal, by^^ 
representing the Sub-ireasury scheme as a 
mere question of expediency, on which men 
may agree to differ without any compromise 
oi principle, on either side ; and this attempt 
is made, too, by those who have themselves 
but recently denounced the scheme in the 
strongest terms, as dangerous to the public ' 
liberty, by giving the President the immediate 
control of the public money, putting into his 
hands "a fund of corruption" and alarmingly 
increasing the power and influence of his 
ofKce, '-already too great for a republic." — 
Surely, when considerations such as' these 
are involved, the question is one of vital 
and fundamental importance. In ibis as- 
pect — as a measure alike hostile to the 
public liberty, and warring upon the pros- 
perity of the country, directly and indirect- 
ly, in all its most essential interests, — the 
Sub-treasury project has ever been viewed by 
those Oonservalive Republicans, who have 
ii'iven evidence of the sincerity of their faitb 
by fearlessly and vrijiinchin^lp meeting the 
denunciations which its profession has drawn 
down upon them. Entertaining such opinions., 
can they, as honest men, and as freemen, sg« 
far surrender their minds and their wills to the 
slavish discipline of party, as to support the 
re-election ol a President, whose pohcy they 
believed to be fraught with consequences so 
calamitous to their country ? I humbly think 
not. 

Another disingenuous device for entrapping 
conservative votes, is founded on the assump- 
tion that they differ with the President on but 
a single question. Even were this so, ii would 
be cause enough for the withdrawal of their 



suppoii, where the question is one of so grave 
and fundamental a character as the Conserva- 
tives honestly behove the Sub-treasury scheme 
to be. But the assumption is wholly untrue. 
The Conservativfi Republicans have diBored 
and still differ with the President on other 
pohits of the highest importance. They have 
seen, through the whole course of his admi- 
nistration and in the conduct of his friends, a 
systematic desiirn to buiid up the practical su- 
premacy of the Executive power, at the expense 
of the Legislative departnjent, and of the peo- 
ple tliemselves. They have .seen this design 
pursued, not only by the persevering efibrts 
which have been made to secure to the Presi- 
dent and his agents the custody and control 
of the public moneys, through the medium of 
the Sub-treasury scheme, but also by the new 
and alarming doctrine, which was broached in 
h'is annual message at the commencement of 
the late session of Congress in DeceiTd)er, 
183S, that, in the management of the public 
f'levenue, he shoidd be loft ' at liberty' to em- 
ploy Banks or not, xciikout hj^al regulation 
arid'at his mere discrelion, as depositaries and 
fiscal agents of the government, — thus sub- 
jfecting all the moneyed Institutions of the 
country to his influence and control. In the 
steady pursuit of the same gieat aim, they 
have seen a system of party discipline iiitro- 
duced and organized under the auspices of the 
present Chief Magistrate, the fundamental 
canon of which is that every member of the 
|>arty which brought him into power, must 
surrender his individual opinions and convic- 
tions on public measures, however profoundly 
entertained, to the dictum of the President, 
and support whatever Ae shall recommend, un- 
der pain of excommunication and political 
death for disobedience. By these means, 
tjombined with the [)owerful persuasives of 
bis official patronage, the President is virtually 
invested with mpreme pou-er. The debasing 
principle has been openly avowed, as well as 
{practically enforced, that the tirst dtity of the 
public functionary is to the President who ap- 
points, and not to the country which employs 
him, and that so long as he renders good po- 
litical service to his chief, no infidelity to his 
public trust, not even the grossest peculation, 
shall be suffiired to deprive him of his ofFice. 
MS\\\\q unfaithful agents and public defaulters 
have thus earned impunity and reward, others 
who have been distinguished by the honest, 
able, and examplary discharge of their official 
cXities, have been arbitrarily removed from of- 
fice, for no other reason th;m that they could 



not conform the private and involuntary opera- 
tions of their minds to the standard of Exe- 
cutive faith, or that they I)elieved it unbecom- 
ini: the proprieties of their situation, as public 
officers, to take a part in those electioneering 
exertions, which have come to be considered 
the surest passport to favor and security. And 
to cap the climax of these bold pretensions of 
Executive power, we have seen a report so- 
lemnly put forth and triumphantly carried 
through, by the President's friends in the Se- 
nate, proclaiming in the face of day, and in 
contempt of the most revered oracles of An- 
glo-x\.merican liberty, the daring heresy that it 
is both the right and the duty of Executive 
office-holders to intermeddle with the freedom 
of elections, thus sacrificing the vital principle 
of po[)ular sovereiitnty itself at the shrine of 
this new idol of Pre.-idential supremacy'. 

While in those measures and proceedings, 
we have seen the President and his friends 
pursuing with unvarying aim, as the piimary 
object, it would seem, of their effiirts, the 
dangerous aggrandizement of his power, — in 
his plans of national policy we have been 
constantly met with sui gestions and recom- 
mendations aiming at the subversion of es- 
tablished Institutions, and utterly destructive 
of the repose and settled order of business in 
the affiiirs of tlie country, and appealing to 
the jealousies and worst passions of society 
in their support. The special object to which 
his schemes of innovation have been mainly 
directed, is unfortunately the most delicate of 
all the interests of society, and that which 
requires to be touched with the wisest and 
most cautious hand — the system of its cur- 
rency, forming the common measure by which 
the labor and property of every individual 
ill the comnumity is estimtited or exchanged. 
Instead of pursuing a salutary and practical 
reform of existing abuses, whatever they may 
be, (an object in which all good men and pa- 
triots would heartily unite wiih him,) he has 
brought forward crude and anti-social theories, 
and has propagated them with all the influ- 
ence of his high office, which go to the entire 
destruction of that system of credit, which is 
coeval with the settlement of our country, is 
so peculiarly adapted to its circumstances, 
and to which, whatever irregularities may 
have sometimes attended it, (as, indeed, what 
ifood. in the ordinances of nature or the in- 
stitutions of man, is not liable to occasional 
abuse,) every candid and well informed mind 
must admit that the unparralleled develop- 
ment of American prosperity and civilization 



4 



lias been mainly owing. The President's 
theories and recommendations, if tliey mean 
any thing, go to the entire destruction of this 
long established system, now indissokibly 
connected with all the interests of society, 
and to the cslahlishment, in its stead, of an 
excUisive hard money currency, or something 
praciif ally tantamount to it, operating a sud- 
den and total revolution in the value of lal)or, 
properly and contract.-, and involving the farm- 
er, tlie mechanic, the tradesman, the merchant, 
and in short every class of men, (with the 
exception of creditors and puhlic officers en- 
}oi/i II t^r Jlxed salaries from the government.) iu 
one common ruin. As an essential part of 
this policy, the President has proclaimed a 
crusdde against Institutions, deriving their ex- 
istence from, and responsible to the States 
alone, and in his new-born zeal has so far 
t'orgot his former opinions, as to recommend 
lo Congress the enaction of a special bank- 
rupt law, applying to these institutions ex- 
clusively, and intended to put an end to their 
existence by an act of the Federal authority 
— a measure which but a few years before, he 
had denounced in the strongest terms, as an 
'• odious and unconstitutional invasion of the 
rights of the .States." {See Iiis Speech in the 
Senate of the United States, on a proposition 
of Mr. Branch, of JV. C. on the Q>th of Feb., 
1827, 3d. vol. Register Con. Deb., jo. 286.) 

Upon all these subjects, the Conservatives 
fiavi; diircred, and still dilier uith the Presi- 
diMit, as well as upon his Sub-treasury scheme. 
These difTcrences have been manifested by 
them on various occasions, and in a variety 
of forms — speeches, votes, and discussions of 
popular assendjliesi In regard to myself, I 
liave omitted no proper occasion, in both wiit- 
t(;n and oral addresses to my fellow-citizens, 
to |>roclaim them ; and yet I have seen with 
infinite surprise, that some persons recently, 
to cover their own change of position, have 
allcgeil tl)at it had been heretofore understood 
that I dilf'ered with the administration on but 
a .single ijueHlion, that of the Sub-treasury ! 
This allegation, too, is made in the face of the 
notorious fact that I have been denounced by 
the administ ation press from one extremity of 
the country to the other, for daring in the con- 
scientious discharge of my public duty, to 
oppose and crposi- divers other acts and mea- 
sures of the President and his party— his il- 
licit and dangerous renewal of the connection 
with the IJank of the United States, — his 
alarming and anti-republican doctrine broach- 
ed in his message to Congress at the com- 



mencement of the last session of Congress 
with regard to the discretionary employment, 
of banks in general, as fiscal agents of the 
Government, at his sole will and pleasure, 
without any rule or limitation of law, — and 
finally, the daring attack made by his friend^ 
in the portentous doctrines of Mr. Wall's re- 
port, on the vital principle of representati\e 
Government — the freedom of elections. 0^^ 
this last occasion, 1 characterized the general 
policy of the administration by what seemed 
to ine to be its leading features, and declared 
my conviction that on all the great questions 
of respect for the rights of the States, — limi- 
tation of Executive patronage — economy in 
the public expense — the independence of th? 
legislative department — acquiescence in the 
decisions of the majority — and a sacred regard 
to the right of election — (the memorable land 
marks of republicanism laid down by Mr. Jef- 
ferson) — it had widely departed from every 
principle held and acknow'edged by true repub- 
licans. It is, moreover, well known, that at the 
last session of Congress, I opposed,to the best 
of my ability, another favorite measure of the ad- 
ministration, commonly called the Graduation 
Bill, for virtually giving away to certain favor- 
ed States, th^t " common lund" of the puh- 
lic lands, derived in gieat part from the mu- 
nificence of Virginia, and in flic benefit of 
which she expressly reserved her equal right 
to participate. How idle then, the sugges- 
tion recently invented, that either myself, or 
the Conservatives in general, whose opinions 
and destiny it is alike my pride to share, have 
differed from the administration on but a sin- 
gle question. 

Let us now inquire whether the President 
has changed his policy or practice on any of 
these highly important questions, on which we 
have ditfcred with him. Some of his noisv 
partizans have claimed for him great credit 
for the lavish professioss of economy he makes 
in his late message to Congress. But what 
has been the practice, which we are much 
more interested in knowing than the empty 
precepts of his administration ? According to 
his own statement, the public expenditure 
during the year 1837, the first of his presi- 
dency, amounted to " the sum of thirty-three 
mdlions of dollars ;" during the year 1S38, 
he says this amount " was somewhat re- 
duced ;" and for the year 1839, he thinks that 
the public expenditure " will not in all proba- 
bility have exceeded twenty-six millions of 
dollars !" But this sum of twenty-six mil^ 
lions of dollars happens to be just the double 



of the public expenditure under the adminis- 
tration of John Q. Adams, which most of us 
thought was so enormous and unjustifiable as 
to merit the displeasure and rebuke of the 
j>eople. What, however, are we to think i-f 
the President's promise of " continued reduc- 
tion" of the public expense, when we find on 
tjie very same page of his message, the most 
earnest recommendation by him to the favora- 
ble consideration of Congress, of a plan of 
the Secretary of War for recruiting a militia 
Army of hco liimdred thousand men, one-half 
to be in *' active service," the other half to 
form a " reserve :" the term of service to be 
eight years ; the troops to be armed, equipped 
and paid by the United States, «' accordmg to 
a rate of compensation to be fixed by law," 
but in other respects to be under the " regu- 
tiition" of the War Department ? The an- 
nual cost of such a force, according to any 
conception I can form of the Secretary's plan, 
under the outlines he has i>iven of it, could 
not fail to add many millions to the public 
burthens. I now speak only of the question 
of expense ; but in other aspect^:, this most 
axtraordinaiy project, emphatically endorsed 
as it is by the President, for, in his message to 
Congress, he says, " I cannot recommend it 
too strongly to your consideration," deserves 
fhe most serious reflection of every friend of 
the public liberty. 

Is not militia force, as the Secretary choo- 
."jes to call it, or the one half of it, at least, 
which is to be "in active service" — "recruit- 
ed for eight years" — "stationed" wherever 
the Secretary of War shall direct — "armed 
iind paid" by the United States — to all intents 
and purposes, a stantUno; army, and denomi- 
nated a militia force, only to avoid the instinc- 
tive jealousies which the name of a standing 
army calls up in the mind of every freeman. 
Can such a force be called militia in the 
sense of the Virginia Bill of rights, which 
declares that, "a vv-ell regulated militia, com- 
posed of the body of the peoplr, trained to 
arms, 13 the proper, natural, and safe defence 
of a free state," or in the sense of the Con- 
stitution of the United States which authoriz- 
es Congress "to provide for calling forth the 
militia to execute the laws of the Union, sup- 
press insurrections and repel invasions^'' Is 
tliere at this moment, insurrection, invasion, 
resistance to the laws of the Union, which 
would justify calling forth the militia into 
V actual service," or if there were, would it 
justify embodying them as " recruits," for 
eight years term of service • No such con- 



stitutional exigency exists or is alleged ; and 
lean view the Secretary's plan in no other 
light than as a proposition for raising a large 
standing army, without encountering the well- 
founded republican jealousies which its name 
excites; or otherwi'ie, as a most ingenious de- 
vice for extending the influence of the Fede- 
ral Executive, by setting apart from the mass 
of the people, two hundred thousand voting, 
not fighting men, receiving pay from the Uni- 
ted States as militia "in actual service,'' and 
looking np to the President as "their Com- 
mander in Chief," as the Constitution, in that 
case, provides and directs. I know of but 
one precedent for so profound a contrivance ; 
and that was in the days of the " English 
Connnonwealth, so called, when that wily 
statesman Oliver Cromwell, divided the king- 
dom into "twelve military jurisdictions, "justas 
the Secretary now proposestodividc the United 
States into "eight military districts," and un- 
der cover of organizing the militia, caused 
them to be "enlisted," or recruited, under 
proper ofllcers, and "regular pay to be distri- 
buted among them ;" which the historian 
says, the Lord Protector found to be a most 
etTectual "resource" lor repressing his politi- 
cal enemies, but which all reasonable men 
considered as "throwing aside the mask of 
liberty," and "parcelling out the people into 
so many sub-divisions of slavery." I have 
no disposition to question the originality of 
the Secretary, by insinuating that he may have 
derived the hint of his plan from so celebra- 
ted an authority. 

But to return to the interesting question of 
the financial condition and prospects of the 
country, — Ke have just had a most impres- 
sive admonition of the precarious and uncer- 
tain character of Executive professions and 
assurances on this subject. You doubtless 
recollect that, in his message at the com- 
mencement of the session of Congress, the 
President exhibited a highly flattering; picture 
of the condition of the Treasury, and of the 
very successful manner in which its opera- 
tions had been conducted. He told the Re- 
presentatives of the people, "there is every 
reason to believe, if t ongress shall keep the 
appropriations within the estimates fin-ni.sbed 
by the Executive, that the out standing Trea- 
sury notes will be redeemed, and the public 
expenses be defrayed" by the existhig and 
current means of the Treasury, "without im- 
posing upon the people any addiiionnlbyniUcu, 
either of loans or increased taxes ;" and then 



prococtltM] to ilcscant on the "great evils of a 
j)tiblic debt in lime of peace." This mes- 
sage was delivered an the twenty-fourth of 
December. 1839. But 

Nescia mens hominnm fati sortisque futiiraj, 
Ei servare inotlum, rebu.s sublata secundis — 

On ihc 4lh day of February following, in 
less than si.v weeks after these flattering as- 
surances, and before any appropriation had 
been made by Congress, except for their own 
pay, another message is sent, communicating 
an aj)prehended " dpficir.na/^ in tho revenue, 
and urgently calling on congress to "make 
early provision of certain and adequate" addi- 
tionid " means to guard the public credit, and 
to nit'ct prornpllv and faithfully any drficirncies 
»« t/f revenue, from whatever cause they may 
arise'' — or, in other words, by another issue 
of Treasury notes, or a loan in some other 
t'orm, to incur "that very creation of a public 
ilcbt," with the denunciation of which he had 
embellished his discourse at the opening of 
ihe session of Congress. 

Let us look a little farther into the Presi- 
dent's late animal message to Congress, to see 
if it furnishes to the Conservatives any ground 
to expect a change either of policy or doc- 
trine on any of the riuesdons on which they 
have diflered with him. Does he renounce 
any of those dangerous and anti-republican 
claims ot executive power which we have seen 
have been heretofore advanced by him and 
his friends ? So far from it, he has, in the 
ominous declaration he makes in his message 
" that the Executive forms a cnmponcnt part of 
the If'^idative power," put forth a new, and by 
far the boldest and most imconstiiutional pre- 
tension in l)ehalf of Executive power that ever 
Avas avowed or countenanced by any states- 
man in this country. Where can the Presi- 
dent fmd any thing to give color to so darjger- 
ous a dogma? The very first line of the Con- 
stitution of the United States decisively repu- 
diates it by expressly declaring that " oil le- 
gislative powers herein grantedshall be vested 
U) the Congress of the United States, which 
shall consist of a Senate and House nf Repre- 
senlutiocsy Will the President endeavor to 
t'md some sanction to this !)oId pretension in 
ihat provision of the Constitution which di- 
rects that when " a bill has passed the two 
Houses of Congress, it shall be presented to 
the President for his signature ; and, if he re- 
fuse to sign it, he may return it, with his ob- 
jections, to the- House in which it originated ?" 
13ut this very same provision expressly de- 



clares that, though he has refused to sign if, 
yet the bill " .yAa// become a lau\" without his\ 
signature, '\i Xwo-^hnis of both House.s over- 
ride his objections. The same provision also 
declares that if " a bill be not returned by the 
President within ten days after it shall have- 
been presented to him, the same shall he a law 
in like manner as if he had signed it ^ This 
very provision of the Constitution, then, shew- 
ing that a bill may " become a law" wilhout 
the concurrence of the President, gives not 
the slightest support to the sweeping claim 
now brought forward by him that the " Exe- 
cutive forms a component part of the legisla- 
tive power;" while that claim, as already re- 
marked, is most emphatically repudiated and 
condemned by the first line of the Constitu- 
tion, which declares that " all legislative 
powers herein granted" are A^ested in the twd 
Houses of Congress. 

If this extraordinary declaration of the Pre- 
sident were a mere barren theory, revolting as* 
it is to the understanding, it might be permit- 
ted to pass Aviihoul the expression of any 
other sentiment than that cf "special won- 
der" that a statesman who had passed through 
a succession of public trusts to the very high 
est known to the Constitution, should so 
strangely have mistaken both the text and the 
spirit of the " great charter" by which he 
holds his office, and which, in limiting and 
defining the powers and duties of public func- 
tionaries, intended to give the highest practi- 
cal security to the public liberties. But it 
is no emi)ty speculation on the part of the Pre- 
sident. It shows the overweening anxiety^ 
wath which he is intent on the assertion of 
executive prerogative and the enlargement of 
his own powers, and how prone he is to con- 
found the abuses of Executive influence over 
the Legislative Department in the practical 
administration of the government (which he 
himself, by his system of party discipline, has 
so largely contributed to introduce) with the 
sacred text of the Constitution itself. This 
new Execuiive readivg of the Constitution 
was, doubtless, intended, and has been so 
interpreted by the President's own party, to 
claim a wide latitude in the use and applica- 
tion of the veto power ; for, if the " Executive 
be a comopnent part of the legislative power," 
he would be justified in withholding his ap- 
proval of any act of legislation on the same 
principle which would justify the non-con- 
currence of any other "■component part" of the 
Legislature — of the Senate or House of Re- 



presentatives, for example, in respectively de- 

' ciding on bills sent from one House to the 
other. And as a mere difTe.rence of opinion 
as to the expediency of the measure proposed, 

_ has ever been held to justify one House ia re- 
jecting a bill passed by the other, so a like 
difference of opinion, under this new reading 
of the Constitution, would justify the Presi- 

' dent, as a " component part of the legislative 
power," in applying the qualified negative or 
veto, which the Constitution gives him for spe- 

,cial and extraordinary occasions, to any act of 
legislation passed by the two Houses, of the 
expediency of which he may not entertain the 
same views that they do. 

To show how utterly inconsistent this new 
view of the application of the Presidential 
veto, is with the old republican doctrines, I 

^need only refer you to Mr. Jefferson's official 
opinion presented to Gen. Washington or the 
constitutionality of the Bank charter in 1791, 
in which he says, the veto was intended by 

•^ the Constitution as a sJdtld to protect the con- 
stitutional rights of tlu Slates, and of the co- 
ordinate departments of the government from 

^ the invasions of the Legislature, and even in 
such cases, it ought not to be interposed, un- 
less the question should appear to the mind 
of the President to be a " clear'' one, and free 

\from all reasonable doubt. If, however, un- 
der the novel theory broached bj' the present 
Chief Magistrate, this hi^h and delicate pow- 
er, from being " the extreme medicine, is to 
become the daily food of the Constituiion," 
and may be legitimately used to arrest an or- 
dinary act of legislation, upon a mere differ- 

, ence of opinion as to its expediency, it is 
plain, that it works at once a fundamental re- 
volution in our Republican system, imparting 
to the Executive power an irresistible energy, 

■■ and enabling the President, in practice, habi- 
tually to set at naught the decisions of the 
Legislative department ; for, with the great 
influence his station confers, he can rarely, if 
ever, fail to command the support of one third 
of one or the other of the two Houses of 
Congress, which would be s>ifficient to sus- 

,1 tain Ids negative, and thus put it in his power, 
by his single fiat, to control all the rest of 
both bodies of the Legislature. 

In relation to the dangerous schemes of 

'■ radical innovation heretofore recommended 
and encouraored by the President on the sub- 
ject of the currency, and so deeply affecting 

^ those daily interests of life, which '-come 
home to the business and bosoms of men," 
the late Message, instead of disclosing any 



salutarT,' modification of his former opinions, 
reproduces those opinions, in a more naked, 
unequivocal and alarnung form than they have 
ever, heretofore, been presented. It is evi- 
dent, whatever may have been said by his 
partizans to the contrary, that he aims at a 
total overthrow and destruction of the e.xiat- 
ing monetary system of the country, and not 
merely at a safe and prudent reform of the 
errors ar>d abuses which may have attended 
it. After speaking of certain gross irregu- 
larities in the course of business lately pur- 
sued by the Pennsylvania Bardi of the LI. !S. 
and one or two other banks, (irregularities for 
which the system, in general, cannot, wiih 
justice be held answerable, for they consisted 
in an acknowledged abandonment of the 
fundamental principles and designs of bank- 
ing, and " a deviation," as the President him- 
self says, " from the former course of busi- 
ness in this country,'') he proceeds to exhibit 
a highly wrought picture of the evils and ca- 
lamities which ensued ; and then pronoun- 
ces his " delenda est Carthago'''' against the 
whole system, in the sweeping declaration 
that — "these consequences are inherent in 
the present system — they are not inlluenced 
by the banks being large or smyll, created by 
National or State Governments — they are the 
results of the irresistible laws of trade and 
credit."' He follows up this declaration with 
much more about the evils of " a credit cur- 
rency," and the injuries inflicted " by the 
resistless laws of a credit currency and credit 
trade," and, finally, after earnestly urging the 
policy and duly of the General Govermnent 
to collect its dues and pay its debts in gold 
and silver, he says, very significantly, that 
its example in so doing, would serve as " a 
rallying point by which our rvhole covntrij may 
be bro'ight hack to that safe and honored 
standard." Now this certainly sounds very 
much like an exclusive hard money currency. 
It is true that the President, in another part 
of his Message says, that " in a cuntry so 
commercial as ours, banks, in some form, will 
probably always exist ;" but it is evident from 
what he says, in the same connection, that he 
means to exclude banks of circulation, as now 
existing, and if we have banks at all, they 
are to be banks of deposite, confined in their 
o[)erations to their specie basis, or something 
of that sort, which would virtually operate, 
to all intents and purposes, as an exclusive 
hard money currency. 

My purpose now is not to discuss these 
extraordinary opinions and recommendations 



8 



of the President, or to point out the ruinous 
consequences which so total arevolulion in the 
ijionotary system of the country would bring 
with it to every class of society, creditors and 
salaried ofiijcrs, as I have before remarked, 
alone excepted. This has been done with far 
more ability than I can pretend to, by one of 
the ablest and most distmguished wiiters on 
political economy in our country, (and a Vir- 
ginian, too, I urn proud to say,) who, though 
removed from all connection with party poli- 
tics, has been so startled by the dangerous 
fallacies of the President's Message, on sub- 
jects to which he has devoted the chief stu- 
dies of his life, that he has felt it a duty, from 
>\hich no good citizen is exempt, to aid in ex- 
posing them. You will find his views, 'with- 
out his name, however, which his retired and 
unambitious course of life has doubtless caused 
him to wish to be withheld from the public, 
but which, if known, coidd not fail to draw 
general attention,) in a letter recently address- 
ed to a representative in Congress, and pub- 
lished in the Madisonian of the 2Sth and 30th 
of last month. I commend it to yom- atten- 
tive perusal, and I most ardently wish that it 
could be in the hands of every reading and re- 
fieoting man in the country. 

I will not touch upon the topics which he 
has so ably treated ; but I cannot forbear to 
notice the extraordinary and unprecedented 
tone of dictation and deimnciation, which the 
President, in tlie fiery zeal with which he is 
animated lor the propagation of his favorite 
schemes, has permitted himself to assume in 
his Message towards the sovereign States of 
the Union. He indulges in the most vehement 
animadversions on their systems of State po- 
licy. He invokes a ruthless spirit of exter- 
mination against ihi^r Banking Institutions, 
"lOy u-Iwsii tiicans" he says the jirovisions of 
the Constitution, authorizing Congress " to 
coin money and regulate the value thereof," 
and prohibiting the Slates "to coin money, 
emit bills of credit," &:c., have been "prac- 
ticiillii snhvevled.'" lie calls upon the States, 
"from whose legislation" he says "these evils 
have sprung," to "apply the remedy," and 
especially to enforce "an injlexihle execulioii 
of the laws" against Banks which may have 
.suspended specie payments, or in other words 
rigidly to exact n Joifcilure of Ihcir charters! 
After these imprecations on the State Banks, 
he arraigns the State Legislatures for "pluug- 
ing their rc:s[)ectiv(! Smtes into embarrass- 
ment and debt," telling them that "our people 
will not long be insensible to the extent of the 



burthens entailed upon them*^' and holds up 
the States to the view of the world, for their 
extravagance and improvidence, in such a 
manner as cannot fail seriously to prejudice 
their credit, whatever be their resources. So ' 
vehement is his horror of the credit system, 
that he seems to view with instinctive aver- 
sion eveiy thing which it may have assisted to , 
create, and proceeds to denounce those noble 
and most useful State improvements, whiclr 
have caused the recent wilderness of Ameri- 
ca to "blossom as the rose," as "splendid bu^ ' 
in many instances profitless rail-roads and ca"-- 
nals, absorbing the fruits of national industry 
for years to come, and securing to posterity" 
no adequate return !" After this onslaught on 
the policy of the States, and their institutions 
and establishments, he summons up the spirits 
and enkindles the zeal of his followers for the 
work of demolition before them, by the war- 
cries of " monopoly," " privileged associa- 
tions," " partial legislation," and tells them 
that "the abuses which they have the power 
peaceably to remedv are such as have else- 
where caused the e[fxision of rivers of blood, 
and the sacrifice of thousands of the liiunan 
race" but that he "hopes they will carry 
through the reform which has been so well' 
begun," "submitting to temporary sacrifices, 
however great, to ensure their permanent wel- 
fare." 

Upon what new conception of the powers 
and duties of a Chief Magistrate of the Union, 
the President has felt himself authorized thus 
to interfere with the domestic concerns of the 
States, and to arraign, lecture, and dictate tc 
them in regard to matters belonging to their 
exclusive jurisdiction, (an interference which 
seems to me to be consolidation in its worst 
form, and if submitted to in this instance^ 
would be a precedent justifying an interfe- 
rence with any other, even the most delicate of 
all the domestic institutions of the States,) I 
know not. But no reflecting or sober minded 
man can fail to perceive, for an instant, the 
wide-spread ruin which would ensue to the 
whole country, if this war upon its industrious 
pursuits and its estal)lished policy and Insti- 
tutions shall continue to be prosecuted, in the 
destructive and fanatical spirit which the Pre- 
sident encourages, if he has not infused, into 
his iollovvers. " Great as are the sac7-ifices,^^ 
which he himself anticipates, they bid defi- 
ance even to his powers of description. Let 
those Institutions wliich supply the currency 
and contribute in so large a degree to uphold 
the credit of tne States, be annihilated— Let 



those noble Stale Improvement?, which ojve 
value to the products of Agriculture, and life 
and animation to industry, in creatiu"- and 
opening a way to profitable markets, be aban- 
doned and suffered to become " an heap of 
stones," — let the value of every description of 
labor and property be brought down to the 
standard of an exclusive hard money curren- 
cy, — and the imagination may conceive, but 
no pen can adequately portray the general 
scene of desolation and distress which will 
follow. To my mind, the most appropriate 
type of it is presented in the ravages of Attiia, 
in the fifth century, over the face of the fairest 
portion of Europe. It was the boast of that 
celebrated chieftain, " that the o-rass never 
grew upon any spot where his horse liud trod;^' 
and if the destructive doctrines of the Presi- 
dent shall be carried out, in the spirit of his 
Message, he, too, may boast of a similar tri- 
umph over the prosperity, happiness, and ci- 
vilization of his country. 

Plave we not, already, had some foretaste 
of the disastrous consequences, which the pro- 
pagation of this spirit and these doctrines, is 
likely to produce, in the recent proceedings of 
the President's party in the Legislature of one 
of the most powerful States of the Union — I 
allude to Pennsylvania. Under the instiga- 
tion of the President's message, we have seen 
his political friends there bringing in and tri- 
umphantly carrying through one branch of the 
Legislature, by dint of parly discipline, a Bill 
(or forcing a resumption of specie payments 
by the Banks ivil kin fifteen days, which, it was 
understood, would have been promptly passed, 
under the same influence, by the other branch, 
but for the patriotic intervention of the Govern- 
or, who, seeing the inevit ible distress and ruin 
which so precipitate a measure must bring up- 
on the community, and that it had already in- 
flicted a serious blow on the credit of the State 
herself, by rendering it impossible to meet the 
payment of a large amount of interest on her 
public debt, on the day it fell due, and thus ex- 
posed that great commonwealili to the injuri- 
ous effects as well as mortification, of a vio- 
lation of her solemn engagements, came for- 
ward nobly, in the face of the party denuncia- 
tions which he foresaw and declared would be 
visited upon him, and earnestly appealed to 
the Legislature to pause, and re-consider the 
dangerous measure which was in progress. — 
But in Washington itself, under tiie personal 
surveillance and direction of the movements 
of his party by the President, we have seen a 
still more alarming exhibition of this reckless 



and unconstitutional spirit of interference with 
the domestic concerns and credit of the 
States. On motion of a member of the Se- 
nate, fresh, not from the people, but from the 
cabinet of the President, of which he was but 
a tew days ago, a member, we have seen a 
comiTiittee raised, upon a feigned issue of as- 
sumption, (which no State, or any one on be- 
half of a State had proposed,) to take co<r- 
nizance of the subject of State debts, callin'g 
up the States in succession to the bar of the 
Senate, passing in review their pecuniary en- 
gagements and condition, and so glaringly to 
all intents and purposes, sitting as'a conmis- 
sion of bankruptcy on the affairs of the Slates, 
that when their report came in, it was indig- 
nantly sent back, to the committee by which 
it was prepared, with the concurrence of ma- 
ny of their political friends, to have a portion 
ot it suppressed and expunged. 

When to these, and the other evidences of 
contemptuous disregard for the rights and 
dignity of the states, to which I have already 
referred, we add the bold act of pariy-poiccr, 
by which the President's friends in the other 
House of Congress did not hesitate to disfran- 
chise a sovereign State of the Union of her 
Constitutional ri^ht of representation, in or- 
der to efiect the election of a party Speaker, 
(in which object, however, as if by the retri- 
butive judgment of Providence, they were at 
last disoppointed) — adisl'ranchisement which 
to this day is continued, and may be indefi- 
nitely pridonged, — we may form some idea 
of the modesty, as well as justice, with which 
the President and his party have presumed to 
appropriate to themselves the name of State 
Rights Republicans. In ray humble judg- 
ment, the present Chief Magistrate, has de- 
paried from every leading principle of Re- 
publicanism, the profession of which brtxight 
him into ofBce ; and for myself, I canncit con- 
ceive how any one who is truly a P.epublican 
and a Conservative — who, in the administra- 
tion of the government is the advocate of a 
conservative as opposed to a destructive policy, 
— who is the friend of State-rights in o;>po- 
silion to Federal consolidation, — who would 
maintain Legislative independence agsiinsl Ex- 
ecutive supremacy, — who would see the go- 
vernment of this great confederacy adminis- 
tered as a high national trust, and not as a 
parlrj job, — who, in short, loves liberty more 
\.\\M\ power — can support his re-clectioti. Let 
others decide as they may, I certaiidy cannot . 

Let «s now see what are the public prin- 



10 



ciplcs and opinions, the life and character, of 
(ieneral IIahrison, the sole opposing can- 
didate for the Presidency, and if they do not 
present a lieiter guarantee lor the safe repub- 
lican administration of the government. It 
has been the singular fortune of General 
Harrison to have been more misrepresented 
and consequently misunderstood, particularly 
in his native i^tate, than any other distin- 
guished citizen of our country. The reason 
of this is, doubtless, to be found in the cir- 
cumstance that for the last ten or twelve 
rears of his life, he has been withdrawn from 
the scenes of active political employment, 
and that, while his name was before the 
country, in the last Presidential election, ex- 
posing him, of course, to much denunciation 
itnd misrepresentation from his political ad- 
versaries, the attention of the opposition par- 
tvof the South was mainly directed to a dis- 
tinguished citizen of their own section, so 
that there was no party interest felt at that 
time, in the South, in dcte<^'ting and exposing 
the numerous and gross misrepresentations 
of which he was made the subject by an un- 
scrupulous press. From this state of things, 
it has arisen, that in the South generally, and 
in Virginia particularly, the most unfounded 
charges have been widely pro|)agated in re- 
gard to his public principles, and conduct, 
and till lately without efficient contradiction 
and exposure, — thus imposing on many good 
citizens, who will be now eager to repair the 
injustice they have done him. The most pro- 
minent of these charges, which is still wan- 
toidy repeated, is that General Harrison is an 
abolitionist. I have recently investigated 
with care, all the evidences of his principles 
and c(mduct on this, as well as other important 
public (juestions, and I am thoroughly con- 
vinced that if there be one man, who has en- 
tilled himself to the gratitude of the South, 
l)eyond all others, by the noble and disinter- 
ested zeal, he has at all times manifested, the 
sacriiices he has freely made, the single- 
heartedness with which he has exposed him- 
self to persecution and political proscription, 
in defence of the Constitutional rights of the 
South, and the peace and safety ol their fire- 
sides, against all interference whether of fana- 
ticism or political ambition, that man is Wm. 
He.nry Harriso.n, of Ohio. 

Von have doubtless read the speech made 
by him at V^incenncs., in the State of Indiana, 
in 1 83.'}, in which, in the face of a non-sbve- 
hidding audience, he gallantly volunteered to 
defend the rigUtd and interests of the South. 



Where can be found, even in the productions 
of any southern statesman, a more energetic 
and unsparing denunciation of the .schemes 
of the abolitionists I He pronounces them to 
be " weak, presumptuous and unconstitution- 
al" — " illegal, persecuting and dangerous ;" 
and after depicting in glowing language the 
fatal consequences to which they must lead, 
he calls upon his audience ^\hh indignant 
earnestness, to ^^froivn upon measures which 
are to produce results so much to be depre- 
cated." He lays down in the broadest and 
most unequivocal terms, the fundamental 
principle that the subject of slavery is under 
the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the 
States in which it exists, and that neither the 
General Government nor the non-slave-hold- 
ing States have any right whatever to inter- 
fere with it; and he inoreover contends that 
discussions upon the subject in the non-slave- 
holding States, tending in their consequences, 
as they do, to jeopard the peace and impair 
the rights of the slave-holding States, are an 
abuse of the freedom of speech and of the 
press, in violation of the spirit and p<?rvading 
design of the Constitution. The same de- 
clarations were made by him, and with greater 
emphasis, if possible, in an address delivered 
to an assembly of his fellow-citizens at Che- 
viot, in Ohio, on the 4th of July, 1833 ; from 
which an isolated passage, (in which the au- 
thor admitting slavery to be an evil, says he 
would gladly see the surplus revenue of the 
Union devoted to its progressive extinction by 
the purchase, and colonization of the slaves, 
^rintti the sanction of the Stales holding tliem,'') 
has been artfully culled, and given to the pub- 
lic, carefully suppressing the context, in which 
General Harrison maintains, in the strong and 
unqualified language I am about to cite, that 
'• the slave population is under the exclusive 
control of the States which possess them," 
and that " neither the General Government 
nor the non-slave-holding Stales can interfere 
in any way, with the right of j)roperty in 
slaves," and at the same time denounces the 
schemes of the abolitionists as fraught with 
'' horrors, upon which an incarnate devil only 
could look with approbation." 

But even if the incidental and abstract 
suggestions above noticed in the Cheviot 
speech of Gen. Harrison were to be looked 
at, disconnected from its context, however 
we might differ from him both as to its prac- 
ticability and some of the principles involved, 
justice and candor would still require us to 
bear in mind that, but a few years ago, simi- 



11 



hr sentiments were freeh' expressed both by 
the press and public councils of Virginia, and 
that a p an for effecting the same object, al- 
most idpruical with that thrown ont by Gen. 
Harrison, was developed and earnestly advo- 
cated by Mr. Jeflerson, in a letter addressed 
by him, during the last years of his life, to Mr. 
Sparks, which you will lee in the 4th Vol. 
of his wrhiiigs, page 378-391. But I again 
repeat, \v litre is the man, whether of the 
south or of the north, who in the practical 
assertion of the riohts of the south, and in 
energetic and decisive reprobation of the pro- 
jects of the abolitionists, has gone farther 
than Gen. Harrison? A just people catmot 
forget the noble and self sacrificing devotion 
with which he stood alone, out of all the re- 
presentatives of the nsstern jion-slave holdino 
States, and in a little band of but two or three 
from the whole non-slave holding region of 
the Union, in steadily resisting, on behalf of 
the rights and interests of the south, the me- 
morable Missouri restriction, and the kindred 
proposition made at the same period to restrict 
the introduc'ion of slaves into the Territory 
of Arkansas — a patriotic self-devotion, by 
which lie lost his seat in Congress, and in- 
curred popubir odium and proscription, for a 
season, in his ovvn State. All this Gen. 
Harrison did freely, from a ^ense of duty to 
the Coi;-tiiution of his country, and to the 
rights and interests of the Southern States, at a 
time when he had nothing to ask at their hands. 
What w:;s the course of the present Chief 
Magistratt , in whose behalf Gen. Harrison is 
now soi:aht to be stigmatised as an aboUtion- 
ist, und; r the same circumstances ? He, 
then, as a member of the Senate of New- 
York, vuted in favor of instructions to the Se- 
nators ;ind Representatives of that State, in 
Congress, to support the Missouri restriction, 
and a year or two afterwards, as a member 
of the SfMiate of the United States, voted in 
favor of the proposition to restrict the intro- 
duction (if slaves into the Territory of Flori- 
da. We'l. therefore, might the south require 
of him s.>!iie pledge of fidelity to their rights, 
when he became a candidate for their suffra- 
ges to elevate him to the statiitn he now oc- 
cupies. But what further vr higher pledge 
can Gei: Harrison have to give, than his con- 
duct ami "pinions, iniifonnli/ sustained through 
every change of circumstances, and at every 
person; 1 -acriflce, coupled with that just and 
Republit; n definition of the true province of 
the PresiJential veto in his letter to Sherrod 
Williams, Esq., in which he says " it js a 



conservative power intended only to be used 
to secure the constitution itself from violation, 
and to protect the rights of the minority and 
the iveaker members of the Union" — a defini- 
tion obviously framed, in its last clause par- 
ticularly, with reference to that vital interest 
of the South, of which he has proved him- 
self, through good and through evil report, the 
disinterested and patriotic champion. 

Another denunciatory charge against Gen. 
Harrison, and alike destitute of foundation, 
which has been extensively propagated, is, 
that he was " a black cockade Federalist and 
an advocate of the Alien and Sedition Laws," 
during the administration of the elder l\Tr. 
Adams. This charge has been most deci- 
sively met and refuted by Judge Burnet, a dis- 
tinguished citizen, and lately one of the Sena- 
tors in Congress, of the State of Ohio, who, 
from an intimate personal acquaintance with 
Gen. Harrison at the period alluded to, de- 
clares that " he was a firm, consistent, un- 
yielding Republican of the Jefferson school, 
and warmly advocated the election of Mr. 
Jefferson against Mr. Adams." Gen. Harri- 
son himself, in a debate in the Senate of the 
United States, in March, 1826, in replying to 
snme observations of Mr. Randolph, import- 
ing a similar charge, explicitly declared that, 
while in common with his constiuients, the 
Legislature of the Northwestern Territory, 
whose delegate in Congress he then was, he 
approved the course of Mr. Adams' adminis- 
tration in the controversy with the French 
government, and had a great personal respect 
for Mr. Adams as an honest man and a pa- 
triot, "his opposition to the Alien and Sedi- 
tion Laws was so well known in the Terri- 
tory, that a promise was extorted from him 
by his friends in the Legislature that, as he 
had no vote in the proceedings of Congress, 
he would not unnecessarily compromise the 
local interests of his constituents by the ex- 
pression of his political opinions." But whe- 
ther Gen. Harrison has been or is a Federal- 
ist must depend on the character of his politi- 
cal principles, and not on the arbitrary classi- 
fication of personal or party prejudice. Now, 
it so happens that we have an authentic and 
most lucid exposition of his political princi- 
ples by himself, at a period of life when they 
must have been fully matured and thoroughly 
settled, in an address to the voters of his dis- 
trict, before whom he was then a camlidate 
for a seat in Congress, which was published 
in the Cmcinnati Inquisitor, under date of the 
17th September, 1822. 



12 



In that admirable address, he declares that 
he is " a llrpublican of the old Jefftirsonian 
school," nnd derives his principles of constitu- 
tional interpretation " from the celebrated re- 
solutions of the Viri^inia Legislature of '98 
and '99" — that he, therefore, " denies to the 
General Govcrninenc the exercise of any 
power but wliat is expressly given to it by the 
Constitution, or what is essentially necessary 
to carry the powers expressly given into ef- 
fect" — that " he believes the charter given to 
the Bank of the United States tvas unconsti 
tulionar — that " lie believes in the tendency 
of a large public debt to sap the foundation of 
the Constitution, by creating a moneyed aris- 
tocracy, whose views and interests must be in 
direct hostility to those of the mass of the peo- 
ple," and that he is, therefore, " in favor of 
every practicable retrenchment in the expendi- 
tures of the government" — that " he believes 
in the right of the people to instruct their re- 
presentatives^ when elected" — and, finally, 
that he believes " upon the preservation of the 
union of the States depends the existence of 
our civil and religious liberties — that the true 
cement of this Union is the brotherly love and 
regard which the citizens of the several States 
possess for each other — and that, as tlie union 
was effected only by a spirit of mutual con- 
cession and forbearance, so only can it be pre- 
served." A political creed more truly Re- 
publican and patriotic than this, [ think you 
will agree with me, has never been submitted 
to the American people ; and as it was deli- 
vered to the world when the experience and 
reflection of a life then but little short of fil\y 
years had impressed their seal upon his opin- 
ions, it must, in candour, be presumed to form 
the basis of his public policy and conduct. 

Ikit, it is said llnit Gimi. Harrison has voted 
for a protective Tarilf, for Internal Improve- 
ments by the General Government, and is in 
Javur of a National Bank. In regard to this 
last allegation, I thirdc I shall l)e able to show 
you [ireseutly that it is wholly gratuitous. As 
to the others, what more has Gen. Harrison 
done than Mr. Van Buren? Mr. Van Burcii 
voted for the worst of all the Tarid's, the Ta- 
rilf of 1828, commonly called the Bill of 
abominations. Very gross and wanton in- 
justice has been done Gen. Harrison, by per- 
verting a passage in an address delivered by 
him to an agricultural society in Ohio in 1831, 
so as to make the impression that he would 
not be willing to n lax or abandon the Tariff 
policy " till under its operation the grass was 
found to grow in the streets of Norfolk and 



Charleston.*' The truth is that this expression 
was quoted by Gen Harrison from an agricul- 
tural address of Mr. James M. Garnett of our 
own State, who had argued that such was the 
actual effect of the Tariff on the South, and 
Gen. Harrison, responding to the argument, 
declared, if such were really its efTect, then 
"he would instantly give his voice for its tnodi- 
fication or entire repeal." The sentiments of 
Gen. Harrison are known to be those of dis- 
tinguished liberality on this subject ; for in his 
Cheviot speech he declares, with as much just- 
ness of thought as elegance of expression, 
that " even .:: jases where the injurious 
operation of a r-nsasure of the General Govern- 
ment is confined to a few, and it is beneficial 
to a large majority of the States, it wodld be 
evidence of as little foresight, as of moral rec- 
titude in the latter, to countenance the injury." 
On the subject of Internal Improvements, 
General Harrison, I apprehend, never gave 
so strong- a vote in affirmation of the power 
of the General Government, as Mr. Van Bu- 
ren's vote for the erection of toll-gates on 
the Cumberland road, according to his own 
admission, was; and if you look into the re- 
cent Report of the Secretary of War, you will 
find that that officer, as the organ of the admi- 
nistration in this branch of the public policy, 
distinctly asserts the conslihilional power of 
Internal Improvements in the federal govern- 
ment, " in regard to such works as are of ge- 
neral utility," while his statements and re- 
marks show that appropriations for works even 
of a different character have received the offi- 
cial approval and signature of the Presidents 
Gen. Harrison, in his letter to Sherrod Wil- 
liams, Esq., decliires his opinion that '• no mo- 
ney should be taken from the Treasury of the 
United States to be expended on Intt rnal Im- 
provements, but for those luhich are strictly 
national^'' and mculcates, with great f rce, the 
propriety of '■'■ forbearance and concili itioa in 
regard to a power, the exercise of which, had 
produced, and would, doubtless, continue to 
produce jealousies and dissension." 

Let us now f;ee what foundation th're is for 
the assertion that Gen. Harrison is in favor of 
a National Bank. We have already seen that, 
in his address to the voters of the Cincinnati 
district in 1822, he expressly declared that 
"he believed the charter given to the Bank of 
the United States was unconstitutional." In 
his letter to Mr. Sherrod Williams, in answer 
to the query, "whether if elected Pr. sident, 
he would sign a bill with proper mri'hfications 
and reslrictions, for chartering a Bunk of the 



13 



United States," he replies in the following 
very specific and guarded terms— "I would, ff 
it were clearly asceftained that the public in- 
terest in relation to the collection and dis- 
bursement of the revenue would materially 
sutler without one, and there were uneqxiivocal 
munijeslatiom of public opinion in its favor. I 
thhik, however, the experiment should be fairly 
tried to ascertain whether the financial opera- 
tions of the <^overnment cannot be as well 
carried on without the aid of a National Bank. 
Ifi7 is not necessary for that purpose, h does 
not appear to me that one can be constitution- 
ally chartered. There is no construction 
which 1 can give to the Constitution which 
would authorize it, on the ground of aifording 
facilities to commerce." It is to be remarked 
that Gen. Harrison here speaks, not of what 
he would recommend, or is personally in fa- 
vor of, but what he would do, in the event of a 
bill for chartering a bank, under proper modi- 
fications and restrictions, being passed by 
Congress and presented to him for his signa- 
ture ; and even in that case he says he would 
sign it only under the special contingencies he 
enumerates, to wit, that it had been clearly as- 
certaincil by experience lo be necessary for 
carrying on the financial operations of the go- 
vernment, and that there were unquivocal 
tnanifestaiions of pi\blic opinion in its favor," 
and, he adds emphatically, that unless it 
should be shown "to be necessary for conduct- 
ing the financial operations of the govern- 
ment, ho does not think one can be constitu- 
tionally chartered." Connecting what Gen. 
Harrison here says with the declaration in his 
address to the voters of his district in 1822, it 
is evident that his own leanings are decidedly 
acainst a National Bank. While this is Gen. 
Harrison's position on the question of a Na- 
tional Bank, Mr. Van Buren is, we know, ac- 
tively exerting all the influence of his high 
office to force upon the country a oreat go- 
rerument bank, (under the disguise of his 
Sub-treasury scheme,) controlled entirely by 
executive agency, and thus effecting, in the 
hands of the President that union of the mo- 
neyed and political power of the government, 
which has ever been held fatal to the liberties 
»f a free people. 

This question of Executive power is, after 
all, the great and paramount question of the 
day, threatening, as it does, the existence of 



that civd and polilical freedom on which all 
our mstitutions repose. We have seen what 
a rapid and alarming development, by means 
of party discipline, the abuse of official pa- 
tronage, and the new and extraordinary pre- 
tensions put forth by the President and his 
friends, this power has recently attained ; till 
the Government has been warped into practi- 
cal monarchy of the worst sort, in which all 
power IS centred in one man, to be used, not 
for the good of the people, but for the exclu- 
sive belief l of a party. To " correct this pro- 
cedure'— to "restrain Executive power' 
within its legitimate bounds— to bring back 
the " administration to republican forrns and 
principles," and to protect the "purity and in- 
dependence of the lef^islativc department," 
should now be the object of every republican 
patriot, as it was that which, Mr. Jefferson 
tells us, (4th vol, of liis writings, page 450,) 
first aroused and united the republicans of '98 
and '99. To enable you the better lo judge 
of the principles and opinions of Gen. HaV 
risen on this great question of Executive 
power, in contrast with the doctrines and 
practices of the present administration, I will 
extract from his letter to the Hon. Harmar 
Denny, written four years ago, certain cardi- 
nal principles which be lays down »' as proper 
to be observed by any Executive sincerely 
desirous of restoring the Government to its 
original simplicity and repul)licauism," and 
then exhibit in immediateljuxtaposition tothem 
the correlative princi[)les fairly dcducible from 
the practice or express declarations of the 
President or his friends. 

Dnctrincx nj General Daclrincs or fvadice oj 
Harrison laid doivn in Mr. Van Buren and hii 
his teller to II. Denny, friends. 
Esq. 

1st. The Executive 1st. The E-xcciilive 

should disclaim all con- should have the cusiody 

irol over ihe public mo- and cooind of the public 

iieys, except under .strict moneys, and be atliberty, 

and precise limitation of moreover, lo employ 

law. Banks at it.s discretion 

withfiwt liuiiialionof law. 

See Suh treasury scheme 

and Presidtnt's JVlessagc 

to Congress in December, 

1S38. 

2nd. He should never 2nd. It is the right and 

attenipl to inUucnce elec- duty of E.xccntive odice- 

tioiis, nor sutler the tede- holders to intermeddle 

rnl ofiicers to lake any with clcciions. See Mr. 

p;irt in Iheai farther than Wall's Report, counien- 

lo give their own votes, anced by the Executive. 



14 



3d. The veto power 
may be exercised by Uip 
Presideiu, being a 'com- 
ponent part of the Legis- 
laiive power," for mere 
difl'erence of opiuion as 
to ihe expediency of ihe 
measure. See the Pre- 
sident's last Message, and 
interpretation if it in the 
Richmond Enquirer. 

4th. Public ofFicerSjhow- 
ev'er capable and faith- 
ful, may be remov^ed, and 
others, however faithless 
and incompetent, may be 
reiamed, at the mere v:iU 
of the President, as may 
best serve the interests of 
the party. See corres- 
pondence of Secretary of 
the Treasury, and prac- 
tice of the President. 

5th> The President 5th. "To the victor be- 
should never sutler the long the spoils ot victo- 
influence of his office to rv." See motto of Gov. 
be used for purposes of a Marcy illustrated in the 
purely party character. practice of the Adminis- 
tration. 

6th. That the Execu- 6th. The Executive 

tive Department should practically the source oj 

not be made the .<«?4/ce of all legislation under tlie 

hgislation, but that the new system of party dis- 



3d. The exerci.se of 
the vcii> power should be 
limited to cases ofuiicon- 
stiltUioiMlily, encroach- 
jnenion the rights of ihe 
Stalesand indivitluals, or 
cases, involving ike.p in- 
terests, where there may 
appear to have been in- 
advertence or precipita- 
tion m the action of Con- 
gress. 

4th. Removals from of- 
fice should not be arbi- 
trary, but for cav.ic to bt 
stated to the Senate, if re- 
quested, at the time of 
nominating the succes- 
sor. 



cipline which requires 
every member ol the 
parly ti» support the re- 
commendaiions of the 
President,rightor wrong. 
See modern practice of 
party discipline. 



whole business of malvinj^ 
laws, ior the people 
should be left to the tree 
and independent action 
of the Legislature. 

All the above Repub- 
lican rnaxims are laid 
down in the letter of 
General HarrisoQ to H. 
Denny, Esq. 

After running over this parallel of the 
principles and doctrines of the two candidates 
for the Presidency, in regard to the funda- 
mental question of the powers and duties of 
ihe Executive Department, no one can hesi- 
tate as to which of the two is the Repuhlicau 
candidate. But, it may be asked, what giiar- 
^ antee has Gen. Harrison to offer that he 
^ would faithfully carry out the principles which 
he has so properly laid down as the guides 
I und land marks of a llepubiican admini,stra- 
, tion? Besides a character, unstained by 
I treachery in private or public life, he offers a 
; security of no small importance in the formal 
I and public declaration that, if elected, he 
_ M'ould, under no circumstances whatever, al- 
j low himself to be a candidate for re-election. 
Coming into office with this express renuncia- 
I tion of all future personal aspirations, he could 



have but one motive to actuate him in the dis- 
charge of his high duties — a patriotic devo- 
tion to the interests and happiness of his 
country, and a noble ambition to identify his 
name with the permanence o( her free Re- 
publican Institutions. The example which 
Gen. Harrison has thus set, in contributing to 
introduce a principle to which our wisest 
statesmen have attached the highest impor- 
tance, constitutes of itself a strong claim to 
the support of a Republican people. It is 
known that Mr. Jefferson, at the formation of 
the Constitution, pronounced the re-eligibility 
of the President to be its capital, and possi- 
bly at some future day, its fatal defect. How 
impressively have passing events added their 
testimony to the sagacity and wisdom of his 
fore-sight ! The first term of a Presidency 
has now come to be almost wh(dly devoted to 
securing the re-election of the incumbent, by 
party combinations and arrangement, by the 
surveillance and direction of popular elections; 
by turning patronage to the best account, for 
its possessor, and by all the other resources of 
party tactics, (even to the unseemly partici- 
pation of the Chief Magistrate himself in the 
canvass,) to the great neglect and prejudice 
of the national interest. He who by placing 
himself on the principle of a self-imposed in- 
eligibility after a single term of service in the 
Presidential office, shall contribute to make 
it henceforward a part of the political usages 
and common law of the country, will have 
closed up one of the most copious sources of 
existing abuses, and have earned for himself 
a lasting title to the respect and gratitude of 
his countrj-men. 

Regarding General Harrison, for the rea- 
sons I have mentioned, as the true Republican 
candidate for the Presidency of the two now 
presented to the choice of the country, I shall 
unhesitatingly give him my support, 1 shall do 
so with the more cheerfulness, because, while 
best consulting thereby, as I honestly believe, 
those great republican principles which I have 
ever considered to be inseparably united with 
the happiness of my country, I shall assist to 
confer its highest meed on an eminent citizen 
who has rendered it the most signal and im- 
portant services at a time, when to serve 
meant something far other than merely to re- 
ceive the emoluments of othce — on one who, 
having successively enjoyed the confidence of 
Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, would 
be naturally prompted to emulate their high 
example ; wlio, in all the various and delicate 
trusts he has held, has ever shown that he pre- 



15 



ferred his country to himself, and has retired 
from them all, amid the numerous and alluring 
temptations they presented to private gain, 
with clean hands and unsuspected honor, 
neither guilty of infidelity himself, nor wink- 
ing at it in others, and who now in the hon- 
orable retirement of private life, combining 
the ennobling pursuits of the agriculturist, the 
scholar, and the patriot-citizen, is emphatically 
07ie of the people, knowing how to appreciate 
their interests, as well as to maintain and de- 
fend their rights. I cannot doubt that the 
principles we have held in common will have 



brought us to a common conclusion : hut 
whether this should be the case or not, you 
will, I am sure, do me justice to believe that 
in forming the judgment I have done, upon the 
most deliberate and careful reflection, I have 
been actuated by no personal feeling, by no 
mere party views, but by a sincere and anx- 
ious wish for the liberty, happiueas and honor 
of my country. 

I am very respectfully 

and truly, your friend, 

W. C. RIVES. 
To , Esq. 



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